our country. because you d be in jail. secretary clinton that s going to stick. shows you two things that were going on there. number one, hillary clinton being relatively ared in the way she was going after donald trump tonight. nicolle wallace was saying this was essentially could be seen as missed opportunities for clinton and could be seen strategically as a choice by her to tread water and let stuff fly and let this be a debate about donald trump because the trajectory he s on right now is going to have him lose the election. him saying you would be in jail if i were president in this country, that is something that would stick in a debate in our country. it would stick in a debate in a lot of authoritarian countries. it would be the sort of thing that our country would criticize other countries for allowing to be threatened during the course of what was supposed to be a democratic contest.
she should be in jail. on and on and on. but here s the reality of this race fundamentally. you have the two most unpopular candidates in the history of polling running against each other. and whom he ever has the spotlight on them at any time is the person who is losing. so in the first debate, hillary clinton had a strategy to provoke him, to make him respond. he took the bait. every single time. that didn t happen today. she was not able to provoke him. and she was on defense on a number of these issues. through the course of the debate. but at a substantive level as we get ready for the third debate, you take the politics out of it, again, the next president of the united states should be able to speak coherently about what s happening in syria. and to be able to speak knowledgeably about what s happening in aleppo. and whether it was on the question of syria, whether it was his talking about the
right on track with what he s talking about. benghazi, the e-mails. she should be in jail. on and on and on. but here s the reality of this race fundamentally. you have the two most unpopular candidates in the history of polling running against each other. and whom he ever has the spotlight on them at any time is the person who is losing. so in the first debate, hillary clinton had a strategy to provoke him, to make him respond. he took the bait. every single time. that didn t happen today. she was not able to provoke him. and she was on defense on a number of these issues. through the course of the debate. but at a substantive level as we get ready for the third debate, you take the politics out of it, again, the next president of the united states should be able to speak coherently about what s happening in syria. and to be able to speak knowledgeably about what s happening in aleppo.
more from conservative critics of donald trump than liberal critics of donald trump. can you imagine this man with his dem pramt and his drive for vengeance having instruments of government at his hands, the irs, et cetera. i wonder if that was a much bigger gaffe than we are making it out to be. i think it is. i think it s a huge gaffe. republicans talk about the imperial presidency and how barack obama has abused his executive powers. imagine somebody being asked to serve as attorney general if you knew that a president was going to direct prosecutions. i m not a lawyer. but i get that. and it is as dana was pointing out nixonian to a great degree. and i think that it is also un-american to a great degree. and i think that is something the clinton campaign can use and can use very fevtly. also to me when he said i d put her in jail.
to be fodder for discussion. when we finally did actually end up talking about the access hollywood tape during the debate and he said he said, this is locker room talk. you know, we have a world with isis chopping off heads. immediately brought up isis as his answer for whether or not he sexually assaulted someone. that will live on. threatening to jail his political opponent will live on. rescinding his muslim ban will live on. didn t tell people to check out the sex tape. he says he didn t tweet check out the sex tape. check out sex tape. the jail comment is a huge comment. do you realize what would happen though if another country s election, we d criticize, our state department would say that s not a democratic election. that s right. we re going to send monitors. chris matthews is with rudy guiliani. right, thanks, brian. does hillary have a stamina problem? i didn t notice it tonight? she s very good in closing the